Aspects of Heavy Quark Production in Polarized Proton-Proton Collisions

Abstract

We examine the spin-dependence of b-quark production at large transverse momentum in polarized proton-proton collisions. The leading-order (LO) 2 -> 2 subprocesses, g + g -> Q + Q-bar and q+ q-bar -> Q + Q-bar have a large `analyzing power', as measured by the average spin-spin asymmetry <a-hat_{LL}>, at large p_T, approaching -100%. The contributions from next-to-leading order (NLO) 2 -> 3 processes are also discussed and found to be dominated at large transverse momentum by subprocesses with a large and positive partonic level spin asymmetry leading to strong cancellations with the LO predictions. The results suggest that b-quark production might constitute an interesting test of the spin-dependence of NLO QCD but they also point up the importance of a full calculation of the complete O(α_S^3) spin-dependent corrections for a successful extraction of the polarized gluon distribution. Similarities to gluino pair production are also briefly discussed.

23 pages (LaTeX) + 8 postscript figures encoded through uufiles; PSU/TH/135, TAUP 2099-93

References in corpus (6)

• Consistent Analysis of the Spin Content of the Nucleon
• Analysis of Data on Polarized Lepton-Nucleon Scattering
• Associated $J/\psi +\gamma$ production as a probe of the polarized gluon distribution
• Measuring the Longitudinally Polarized Proton Gluon Distribution using Photoproduction Processes
• On the B and J/Psi Cross Section Measurements at Ua1 and CDF
• Spin Structure Functions

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Prospects for Spin Physics at RHIC
• Spin Physics and Polarized Structure Functions
• Theory of hard photoproduction
• Next-to-Leading Order QCD Corrections to the Polarized Hadroproduction of Heavy Flavors
• Double Spin Asymmetry of Electrons from Heavy Flavor Decays in p+p Collisions at sqrt(s)=200 GeV
• Monte Carlo Simulations for RHIC Spin Physics
• Aspects of $\chi$ and $\psi$ Production in Polarized Proton-Proton Collisions
• Parity Violation in Bottom Quark Pair Production at Polarized Hadron Colliders
• Aspects of four-jet production in polarized proton-proton collisions